Cruzing for President

As Sen. Ted Cruz announces he will run for president, he likely has two things on his mind: money and Iowa.

Cruz will formally enter the presidential race ahead of any of his competitors Monday at Liberty University, a Christian school in Lynchburg, Va. But Texas’ junior senator will have to quickly turn his focus to raising the dollars and winning the votes in the first-in-the-nation caucuses that likely give Cruz his best chance for a victory in an early nominating contest, analysts say.

In what is shaping up to be a crowded field, two of Cruz’s Senate colleagues, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, are expected to formally join the race in the next few weeks, and neurosurgeon Ben Carson has already launched an exploratory committee. Former Gov. Rick Perry has said he would announce his bid in May or June. And many other Republican leaders – from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush – have created political action committees to hire staff, travel the country and, critically, raise money in advance of announcements.

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The broader Republican electorate voices more support for more moderate options, too, placing Cruz in the back of the pack in national opinion polling. Democrats on Sunday were gleeful that Cruz could drag the entire Republican field to the right, with Brad Woodhouse, the head of opposition research group American Bridge, saying that Cruz “represents everything voters hate about the modern Republican Party in one candidate.”

But the national tea party base that helped pluck Cruz from obscurity as he toiled away in a long-shot Senate campaign against then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst adores him, and Cruz will appeal to those same voters in 2016, Cruz senior advisers say, and solicit their donations.

There will be a lot of comparisons made to President Obama, who like Cruz ran for President four years into his first term in the US Senate. The original Chron story brings that out in the fifth paragraph, while the DMN goes for it in the headline. The main thing that I would point out, and that people who are easily impressed by Cruz would do well to remember is that in 2008, national Democrats – to the extent that they had any impression of him – were mostly favorable to then-Sen. Obama. He was on the right side of the big issue of the day – that the war in Iraq had been a terrible idea from the beginning – but not in a way that alienated the Democrats who had been on the wrong side of it. To this day, his popularity among Dems remains strong, which is why his overall approval ratings haven’t gone the way George W. Bush’s did late in his second term, despite universal contempt among Republicans and lukewarm at best support among independents. None of this is true for Cruz, who made an instant name for himself by treating his fellow Republicans in the Senate as a greater enemy than the Democrats, and whose take-no-prisoners tactics have largely failed to get any results. Put simply, a lot of Republicans feel strongly about him, and not in a positive way. If he were the nominee now, a lot of that would get swept under the rug, as it usually does. In a battle between Republicans, that seems to me to be a big warning sign.

But what about his upset victory over David Dewhurst in 2012? This Trib article tells the story of how he came to run in that race. Here I would point out that the widely-disliked Republican in that contest was Dewhurst. What Cruz did, better than any of his rivals, was be the focus of Republican dislike for Dewhurst. Dan Patrick did the same in 2014. Dewhurst had enough support to lead the pack in 2012, but it was shallow, and Cruz was able to capitalize. To his credit, Cruz was smart enough to realize that, and lucky enough to benefit from the delayed primary, but it’s not as if no one saw the possibility. Regardless, that dynamic doesn’t exist here and now. He’s not an ingenue but an actual elected official with a record and a long list of people who don’t like him. The people that do like him like him with a fiery intensity, but if intensity were enough to get elected President, Ron Paul would have done so.

Anyway. I doubt I’m telling you anything you didn’t know, and Lord knows there’s a billion stories and posts about Cruz out there today, with as many “Cruz”-based puns to accompany them. If you do still want to look for more, check out this TPM piece from 2013, in which Josh Marshall delves into his personal experiences with The Cruz; this reminder of what Ted Cruz actually believes; some amusing reactions to his speech by the Liberty University students that were required to attend (make your own Liberty joke there); and this screenshot from TedCruz.com, which is not owned by the man himself. Enjoy.